VANA | About Vana

Picture this.
A universe where our digital selves can freely live, play and prosper.

Vana was born in San Francisco in 2021, with the idea that you should own your data and the value it creates.

By building an open ecosystem to own and experience your digital self, we are shifting the flow of data for a more prosperous world.

We’re real people.

Nobody has all answers, especially not the people who tell you they do. We believe in
exploring things together with honesty, curiosity, and kindness. We're constantly learning from the changing world and open to having our beliefs challenged. We learn from each other and get better together.

We love creating new things together.

That's why we cherish and welcome creativity, knowing it will change us and the world
around us. Change isn't always comfortable, but better IS always possible.

Maintaining a community of curious and diverse people is key. By combining our individuality, we generate originality. That's why we welcome creativity, knowing it will change us and the world around us.

We’re our own agents.

Every human is utterly unique. We should have autonomy over ourselves and our future
and the ability to make informed choices about our data. At Vana, we prioritize systems of
accountability that allow us to exercise the fullest agency.

Our story in numbers.

2021

Vana was founded

12

Cities across the world

$20M

Raised

17

Employees

2020

Vana was founded

10k

Users

$20M

Raised

17

Employees

200k

Data points flowing

Anna Kazlauskas

Early core developer at Celo, started YC ML startup, economics research at the World Bank, Federal Reserve, and European Central Bank. Studied CS at MIT. Ethereum mining with dumpster GPUs in 2015.

Art Abal

Former Head of Global Impact Sourcing at Appen. Lawyer at DLA Piper. Advised Prime Minister of East Timor; designed institutions for a new country. Built and led teams across 5 continents. Harvard and MIT.

Ellison Klose

Previously at the Boston Consulting Group and MIT.

Joe Gillespie

Former Head of Tech Recruiting at Robinhood, scaling the company from 75 to 4000 employees in 4 years. Hardware recruiting leader at Oculus (Meta). Led Global research projects for top automotive companies after cofounding 2 companies just out of college. Startup advisor.

Stephen Boske

Former Associate General Counsel at Coinbase with 15 years of prior legal experience covering major broker dealers and other financial institutions. Obtained his Bachelors from the University of Texas at Austin and Juris Doctor from NYU School of Law. CFA charterholder.

Colin Stevenson

Led Support and Crowd Operations at Appen & Figure Eight. Co-founded a translation company in Chile.

Zach Hay

Data Engineer at Datadog, Full Stack Engineer at getcleared.com, Core contributor on /giphy command in Slack while a GIPHY intern, Studied at UPenn

Ashley Haylett

Brings more than 5 years of operations experience helping lean companies become more efficient. Earned her B.S. in Business Administration from Saint Mary’s College of California.